Ferndale pot advocate to stand trial for drug sales

Andrew Cissell – the man who collected the petition signatures that led Ferndale voters to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana – was ordered Thursday to stand trial for selling marijuana to a police informant and having the drug at his house in Oak Park.

Oak Park 45B District Judge David Gubow ordered Cissell, 25, to trial in Oakland County Circuit Court on four felony counts of delivery/manufacture of marijuana. A fifth count was dropped.

Cissell collected enough signatures to put the decriminalization issue on the Ferndale ballot earlier this month. The measure was approved by a 2-to-1 margin. Cissell also faces a misdemeanor voter fraud charge in Ferndale because authorities say he falsely used a Ferndale address when he registered to vote before he took out petitions.

An Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team officer testified that he set up two marijuana buys from Cissell with an informant who wore a wire. Cissell was also stopped with about 4 ounces of marijuana in his car before a house in his name was raided Sept. 9 in Oak Park.

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Ferndale police Officer Matthew Gobel, who works with the county sheriff’s NET squad, testified that police found the 4 ounces of marijuana in a bag in Cissell’s black Cadillac when a Ferndale officer was directed to stop the suspect on West Nine Mile Road.

Inside police said they found almost two pounds of marijuana in two safes, digital scales, 47 plants, 2.8 pounds of drying marijuana, and over a pound of marijuana trimmings in the garage.

Zachary Ochoa testified he was a paid informant who contacted police on his own and gave them Cissell’s name. He was paid $100 for each of two buys he made from Cissell with the money for the buys coming from NET.

He described meeting Cissell at Eight Mile Road and Coolidge in Oak Park then driving into a Detroit neighborhood a half mile away to complete the transaction. Ochoa bought an ounce of marijuana the first time for $250 and 4 ounces for $950 the second time he met Cissell, the informant testified.

Ochoa said he had worked as an informant in 2011 and contacted a NET phone number he had this summer because he was on probation for a possession of marijuana with intent to deliver charge in Macomb County in 2012.

“I asked (Detective Gobels) if it would be possible to dismiss my probation earlier,” Ochoa said, adding that the undercover officer made no promises but said he would talk to prosecutors.

Later, Ochoa testified he was considering studying abroad in the spring but was concerned about probationary travel restrictions.

Defense attorney Lisa Dwyer tried to have some of the charges thrown out on the grounds that Cissell is a registered medical marijuana patient and caregiver for four patients. Gubow acknowledged she made good legal points but ruled those arguments would have to be addressed at trial.

One argument she made is that one of the marijuana sales to the informant occurred in Detroit, which has decriminalized marijuana for amounts of an ounce or less.

“It’s appalling that Oakland County wants to prosecute (over) an ounce of marijuana in Detroit,” she told the court.

Dwyer also argued that Cissell had an exemption for as a registered marijuana caregiver and patient to travel with marijuana in his vehicle. Under the state law, she said, Dwyer was allowed to have up to a total of 60 marijuana plants at his house.

An arraignment date for Cissell’s trial is pending.

Meanwhile, he is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing in Ferndale 43rd District Court at 1 p.m. Nov. 21.